1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a color balancing scheme for multiple image synthesis, and more particularly, to technology for a color balancing apparatus for reducing a color difference between input images synthesized by an image synthesizing apparatus configured to generate a wide-area image, such as a panorama image from a plurality of input images, and a method therefor.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Wide-area image synthesis technology is an alternative technology to overcome a limited viewing angle when an image is acquired through a mobile phone camera or a digital camera, by connecting consecutive input images to one another into a single wide-area image.
As for the conventional studies, an image synthesis is performed by using an α-blending algorithm for natural synthesis among a plurality of images. According to the α-blending algorithm, one of the representative blending algorithms, two images are mixed at an appropriate ratio and viewed in an overlapping manner. However, when the α-blending algorithm is applied to images that are not completely matched to each other, a ghost phenomenon occurs and thus an image appears to be doubled.
Meanwhile, even when photography is performed at the same region, various factors, such as physical properties of an object to be photographed, lighting conditions of a photographing location, and characteristics of a camera, may affect the image photographed. In this case, a color difference between images as a result from photographing at different lightings may be reduced using an automatic white balance (AWB) algorithm, but a color difference caused by other factors still remains.
In addition, conventional algorithms require too much computation in common, and thus are unsuitable for being directly applied to an image wide-area synthesis application in a mobile device.
Accordingly, there is a need for a color balancing apparatus for generating a natural wide-area synthesis image by reducing the color difference between synthesized input images while avoiding complex computation of the conventional algorithm, and a method therefor.